Booz Allen is committed to solving our clients' toughest challenges. We work with a diverse base of public- and private-sector clients across a wide swath of industries in the U.S. and internationally.

:

Our federal clients include substantially all of the cabinet-level departments of the U.S. government. We serve commercial clients across all industries, including some of the largest organizations in critical infrastructure sectors like financial services, energy, healthcare, and manufacturing, and we have a thriving cadre of international clients in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Some people think that this ugly mostrosity looks more like a Soviet bomb shelter than a civic building in a historical city or that it's a bombastic piece of urban renewal from the late 1960s, it's not attractive or it hurts the eyes just walking by it. While a certain set of others they have a more optimistic view and think that building is a notable achievement in the uses of monumentality in humanity or one of America's foremost landmarks arguable the great building of 20th century Boston.

Opinions about the brutalist Boston City Hall are divided to say the least. On the one side you have people with critical thinking skills and working eyesight. On the other you have Architects. They notoriously wear glasses and they hold all sorts of ridiculous contrarian opinons that just flies in the face of common sense.

— How Brutalist Buildings Trick You With Concrete

Old City Hall	New City Hall

Harvard Launches New Intro Math Course to Address Pandemic Learning Loss

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard's Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

The course, titled Math MA5, will run alongside two established math courses — Math MA and MB — with an expanded five-day schedule.

— https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

As of March 1, 2025, 23.1% (95% Confidence Interval: 22.4% ─ 23.8%) of adults reported having received the 2024─25 COVID-19 vaccine.

— https://www.cdc.gov/covidvaxview/weekly-dashboard/index.html

As of March 1, 2025, 45.8% (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 44.8 - 46.8) of adults received a flu vaccination, similar to last season at this same time point (46.3%).

— https://www.cdc.gov/fluvaxview/dashboard/index.html

"Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit"

— https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

• Zeta 1 Reticuli is a G3 type star with a mass of about 96% of our Sun and a radius about 92% of our Sun.
  
  
• Zeta 2 Reticuli is a G2 type star (same as our Sun!) with a mass 99% of our Sun and a radius about 99% of our Sun.

Despite a 4.42 GPA at Palo Alto's Gunn High School and a near-perfect 1590 on the SAT, Stanley Zhong was rejected last year by 16 colleges from Stanford and MIT to the not so elite University of California at Santa Barbara.

1. MIT (#2 overall US News and World Report rankings)
2. Stanford (#4)
3. Caltech (#6)
4. Cornell (#11)
5. UCLA (#15)
6. UC Berkeley (#17)
7. Carnegie Mellon (#21)
8. University of Michigan (#21)
9. UC San Diego (#29)
10. University of Texas (#30; accepted to)
11. Georgia Tech (#33)
12. UC Davis (#33)
13. University of Illinois (#33)
14. UC Santa Barbara (#39)
15. University of Wisconsin (#39)
16. University of Maryland (#44; accepted to)
17. University of Washington (#46)
18. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

French philosopher Michel Foucault introduced the concept of the "disciplinary space" in his work dedicated to the surveillance techniques. Four main types of the "disciplinary spaces" can be indentified: school, hospital, army and prison. Within a disciplinary space, a person faces certain restrictions on freedom and ability to manage one's own time and location, as well as external surveillance and control. This concerns not just the isolated individuals with abnormal behavior, but everybody.

1. Reporting that Caitlin Clark watched a football game with Taylor Swift.
2. That Skip Bayless has an opinion about this.
3. Yahoo reporting Skip Bayless' opinion about this.
4. Me pointing and laughing at the reporting of Skip Bayless' opinion...

Consider a career with two jobs, one of 38 years and one of 2 years.

38*38/40 + 2*2/40 = 36.1 + 0.1 = 36.2

(38² + 2²)/40 = 36.1 + 0.1 = 36.2

(Y₁² + Y₂² + Y₃² + ...)/TotalYears

A British Hedge Fund founder named Sanjay Shah moved to Dubai to commit fraud against the Danish government.

And now he is in legal trouble.

"Supermicro Finds No Evidence of Fraud; Will Replace CFO"

Joe Rogan is like some barbarian Khan from the steppes that took an interest in intellectual things and his show is basically him bringing slightly nervous scholars and magicians to come before him to explain how the world works "glasses man, you explain to Joe why sky big and trees grow" but he will also believe almost anything you tell him, and only recently (in the past few years) does he clap back like "Tiny hat man say otherwise, do you lie to Joe? Tiny hat man say fat not bad for you, that sugar is enemy, so which is truth? Joe thinks you are wrong" and people just nervously go "oh-oh ok h-Haha yah I guess so"

"Joe spend many moons on horseback and training with bow and sword, but joe also wonder why skyfire rise from mountains every morning, you will explain this to Joe."

The most accurate description of my podcast I've ever read.

Michigan lands No. 1 national football recruit after reportedly offering $10M NIL deal

The Univ. of Michigan has a commitment from the No.1 football recruit in the nation in Belleville High School (Mich.) QB Bryce Underwood, who "reportedly had an NIL offer upwards of" $10M over four years, according to David Goricki of the DETROIT NEWS.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/11/22/michigan-bryce-underwood-nil-deal

Then in 1971, arguing that it would be beneficial for the mining industry, South Africa began a research program on PNEs -- peaceful nuclear explostions. It was THIS program which eventually morphed into a nuclear weapons program.

The coaching staff has no interest in backup-backup Trey Lance, but because Rush was so blah they put the former third overall pick in the game late in the third quarter. For two plays. He played most of the fourth quarter, at which time the afternoon felt like a preseason game, and Lance SQUEEZED IN AN INTERCEPTION.

Before leaving the US, the couple made the decision to hold onto their rent-controlled apartment, which Joanna had lived in for over 40 years, in San Francisco, just in case things didn't go to plan.

“You've got to have a plan B,” she says. “What if this doesn't work out? I mean, we could never afford to buy back into California, because it's really expensive.”

1. 24.5%
2. 23.5%
3. ...
17. 16.7%
18. 16.7%
19. 13.0%
20. 11.1%

21. 4.9% (Gardner Minshew, non-rookie contract)
22. 4.8% (Zach Wilson, last year of rookie contract)

• "Cal's upset win over No.8 Miami caps chaotic day in college football", and
• "Cam Ward lead No. 8 Miami to a thrilling 25-point comeback"

"Bird flu is spreading rapidly in California; infected herds double over weekend"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/bird-flu-is-spreading-rapidly-in-california-infected-herds-double-over-weekend/

• 70+ games started vs 17 (4.1×)
• 2,295 pass attempts vs 406 (5.7×)
• 21,102 yards vs 3,974 (5.3×)
• 188 TDs vs 40 (4.7×)

The flight is expected to feature the first private spacewalk along with taking the crew more than 800 miles from Earth, the farthest man had been away from Earth since NASA's Apollo missions.
...
The Dragon capsule does not have an airlock, so the spacewalk will happen closer to Earth, 435 miles from the surface.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2024/08/24/Polaris-Dawn-Dragon-Crew/9671724339872/

[Interviewer] So you mentioned batteries. We're — we're gonna talk about reiterating that 2 million EV run rate by 2026, I believe, right?

Jim Farley: Yes, yes.

According to an assessment provided to Congress last year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were about 180,000 homeless people across the state, making California's homeless population one of the highest in the nation along with New York's, Florida's and Washington's.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/s-mayhem-craziness-californians-react-gavin-newsoms-order-remove-homel-rcna165401

        CA: 181,399
        NY: 103,200
        FL:  30,756
        WA:  28,036

AB InBev
9 yrs
Vice President, Bud Light
Full-time Aug 2022 - Nov 2023 · 1 yr 4 mos
New York, United StatesNew York, United States

First woman selected to lead the largest beer brand in the world. I ran Bud Light, a multi-billion dollar business with a 9 figure media budget and a team of 75 people. I conceived of and executed the strategy to redefine our brand positioning, hone creative decisions around media, content, PR, partnerships and build system belief through sales incentives, go-to-market strategy and regional sell-in. When I took over the brand, Bud Light was voted the #1 presentation at SAMCOM, a four thousand person annual sales conference, for the first time in 7 years. Under my leadership, we flipped the slope on the brand's trajectory - Bud Light had the best share trends in Q1 '23 of the past 5 years.

...NASA managers want to ensure the spacecraft's problematic control thrusters can help guide the ship's two-person crew home.
...
The two astronauts who launched June 5 on the Starliner spacecraft's first crew test flight agree with the managers...

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/starliner-still-doesnt-have-a-return-date-as-nasa-tests-overheating-thrusters/

When Jorge Leon invented at the age of 22 a small device that turns Glock pistols into fully automatic weapons, he said he intended it to be used for the good of society ...

— https://www.yahoo.com/news/feel-terrified-inventor-glock-switch-090429902.html

Mostly me, and my friend Jim (who I've known since junior high) were reflecting on the vast improvement in the world of beer in America, and particularly in Knoxville. As late as, oh, 1990 or so, you could go into almost any bar in Knoxville and if you asked what kind of beer they had you'd get an answer like this: "We've got everything! Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Coors, Coors Light — anything you want!"

Elwood: What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western.

Brands that have many close substitutes are easier to boycott because there are many similar alternatives that consumers can switch to.
...
In the case of Bud Light, the presence of many other light beers on the shelf suggests a high degree of substitutability and low switching costs. This is compounded by the brand's lack of taste differentiation from its closest competitors...

— https://hbr.org/2024/03/lessons-from-the-bud-light-boycott-one-year-later

1,600-year-old fragment identified as oldest written account of Jesus Christ's childhood.

The CEO of the development company that was building a 179-unit, $155-million affordable housing development near Redwood City ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worst-disaster-redwood-city-developer-174816733.html

Frank Shrontz, 92, Dies; Led Boeing in the Last of Its Golden Years
Known for his leadership and his commitment to company culture, he left as chief executive in 1996, opening the door to a corporate makeover.

• Fine the program A LOT of money, or
• Restrict recruiting activity (visits, etc.), or
• Make the program inelligible for bowl games.

• Best losing record: 39-43 by Chicago
• Worst losing record: 14-68 by Detroit

One day in 1671, Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, "What are you doing?" to which the bricklayer replied, "I'm a bricklayer. I'm working hard laying bricks to feed my family." The second bricklayer, responded, "I'm a builder. I'm building a wall." But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, "What are you doing?" replied with a gleam in his eye, "I'm a cathedral builder. I'm building a great cathedral to The Almighty."

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA for the first time. During his tour of the facility, he met a janitor who was carrying a broom down the hallway. The President then casually asked the janitor what he did for NASA, and the janitor replied, "I'm helping put a man on the moon."

• In an attempt to increase financial results the airlines (and most other companies) look for expenses that aren't providing value. Modern skyscrapers, for example, weigh substantially less per square foot than the Empire State Building. This weight savings can turn into cost savings because modern skyscrapers require less materials. This makes them more affordable.
  
  Example: The Empire State Building has about 2.7 million square feet of office space and weighs about 365,000 tons. World Trade Center Towers 1 & 2 each weighed about 500,000 tons (so about 37% more) but had around 9 million square feet of office space. Each Twin Tower required about 40% of the raw materials to construct per square foot of office space as the Empire State Building.
  
  
• The only realistic way to determine if an expense is unnecessary is to try reducing or eliminating it.
  
  
• You discover you went too far when things start to break (e.g. things start leaking when they should not or things fall off). Sometimes it is easy to back up (e.g. if a grocery store experiments with thinner checkout bags it can back up a bit once the bags get thin enough that they break too much). Other times it is difficult (e.g. once one has hired a lot of people who are lax about quality it will be difficult to 'turn on' a culture that values quality).
  
  
• The incentives in modern corporations are for management to push the envelope when trying to cut costs. The benefits (the company has more money) are tangible and near term. The costs are less obvious and longer term.
  
  
• In addition, the way modern corporate financial incentives work, the bonus for cost savings arrives NOW. If the costs appear far enough in the future then the managers responsible for the problem will be gone and it will be someone else's problem. Even if the decision, on balance and over time costs the company a lot of money, it can still result in bonus checks for the people responsible.

• DeShaun Watson was really good from the very beginning (his Passer Rating started high and stayed high for his first four years). He played only about ½ the games his rookie year and provided a lot of value the next three years when he was the starter. He was benched for a year because sexual assault allegations. After he was traded he wasn't very effective (low Passer Rating) and didn't play a lot, contributing to low AV.
  
  
• Lamar Jackson is up and down, but awesome when healthy in the regular season.
  
  
• Dak Prescott is a great regular season quarterback when not hurt.
  
  

• John Pierce who played at David Lipscomb (Tenn.) from 1990-94 with 4,230 points, and
• Pearl Moore who played at Francis Marion from 1975-979 with 4,061 points

• John Pierce is generally considered to have the record for most career points in US college basketball (Pete Maravich's freshman points don't count as points in US college basketball games because ... reasons), but David Lipscomb is an NAIA school, though, so this is not an NCAA record.
• Pearl Moore has the record for most career points in US college basketball by a woman. She played at Francis Marion, however, which was in the AIAW when she was playing (and is an NCAA D-2 program now). Francis Marion competed in the Division II (Small College) bracket of the AIAW.
• Lynette Woodard had the college basketball record for career points allowed by a woman at what is now an NCAA D-1 program, but NOT the NCAA D-1 record because Kansas was part of the AIAW when Lynette was playing.
• Pete Maravich had the NCAA D-1 record for most points in a career. He did this while playing only three seasons (because the NCAA did not allow freshmen to play on college 'varsity' teams then; he scored 741 points as a freshman which give him a four season total of 4,408 points). He also did this in only 83 games (out of 84 possible games — Pete missed one game) and in an era that did not have the three point shot. He played in the SEC, though, at a time when SEC basketball programs mostly did not allow blacks on the teams. His father was the head coach and Pete took over 50% of this team's shots (which might have been more difficult to do if his father was not the head coach; Pete shot a bit under 44% from the field).
• Caitlyn Clark has the NCAA D-1 career scoring record. She did this in 130+ games and had the advantage of the three point line. She still has a few more games to play so her points total will increase. But there is no question that she has scored more points playing NCAA D-1 basketball than any other player.

Rust developers fear language is getting too complex and prefer bug fixes to new features

— Rust developers fear language is getting too complex and prefer bug fixes to new features

• Beverly Wyse (who oversaw 737 MAX development)
• Scott Campbell (retired)
• Eric Lindblad (in charge for 1 month when the first 737 crashed). He was let go after the 2nd crash caused by the MCAS (developed when Beverly was running the product)
• Mark Jenks
• Walt Odisho
• Ed Clark
• Katie Ringgold

• 1982 Season (SB XVII): Joe Theismann vs. David Woodley
• 1987 Season (SB XXII): Doug Williams vs John Elway (HoF 2004)
• 1991 Season (SB XXVI): Mark Rypien vs Jim Kelly (HoF 2002)

1. I would have guessed that the poorest city would be somewhere in Cornwall, and
2. Nottingham is the hated rival city to Derby and our extended-extended UK family lives in Derby.

Nottingham has been named the UK's "poorest city" on a government list - the fifth time in seven years.
     :
According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Nottingham has the UK's lowest gross disposable household income - or GDHI.

Residents earn, on average, £12,445 a year after tax through jobs or benefits. Only Leicester has finished below Nottingham in recent years, in 2013 and 2014.

• 1) Nottingham
• 2) London ← WTF??????
• 3) Plymouth ← Almost in Cornwall!
• 4) Manchester
• :
• *)Doncaster
• *)Colchester

WASHINGTON (TND) — The Biden administration, in a push to make electric vehicles (EVs) more practical, is offering a tax credit for car chargers to a portion of Martha's Vineyard by classifying it as a 'low-income community.'

Biden admin extends EV charger tax credit to 'low-income' Martha's Vineyard

Boeing has to improve quality, production, profit margins, and repair its reputation. One big step the company could take in addressing all those issues is getting rid of its "shadow factories," where Boeing reworks 737 MAX and 787 jets before final delivery.

Boeing has talked about its shadow factories several times in the past few months, and their wind down will lower costs and help the company end painful past issues.

The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide from March 2019 to November 2020 following two deadly crashes within five months. Boeing built hundreds of 737 MAX jets and parked them during the grounding. All those jets need to be reworked, upgraded, and checked before final delivery. That happens in a shadow factory.

Rework adds costs. Wednesday, on Boeing's fourth-quarter conference call, Chief Financial Officer Brian West didn't quantify the cost specificity, but CEO Dave Calhoun said, "In our shadow factories, we put more hours into those airplanes than we do to produce it in the first place…that's a metric I know everybody understands."

— Boeing Wants to Close Its 'Shadow Factories.' It Would Be a Positive Step.

• "I'm damp because I am wet."
  
  
• "Sharing is Caring is OVER!"
  Seth had a toy and did not wish to share.
  
  
• "I like toys! I like exotic toys."
  According to Seth's parents Missouri seems to have a surprisingly large number of adult stores and not a lot else. Seth and his family were driving through and there's not a lot to look at, so they note the more interesting advertising for him. One barn has XXX on the side, and on top advertises "GIRLS! EXOTIC TOYS!" After reading these out loud, Seth pipes up: "I like toys! I like exotic toys."
  
  

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

— A Christmas Carol, by Dickins

Who would have thought renting scooters to drunk people for a dollar, who would then throw them in a canal on their way home, would be a money losing business?

After flying from Davos to Zurich on helicopters and boarding the modified Boeing Co. 737, Blinken and his party were informed that the aircraft had been deemed unsafe to fly. An oxygen leak detected previously could not be remedied.

— Bloomberg: Blinken's Return From Davos Was Delayed After Plane Broke Down

As part of AB InBev's acquisition of the 50% of Grupo Modelo it does not already own, AB InBev has agreed to sell Compania Cervecera de Coahuila, Grupo Modelo's state-of-the-art brewery in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and grant perpetual brand licenses to Constellation for USD 2.9 billion, subject to a post-closing adjustment. This price is based on an assumed 2012 EBITDA of USD 310 million earned from manufacturing and licensing the Modelo brands for sale by the Crown joint venture, with an implied multiple of approximately 9 times. The sale of the brewery, which is located near the Texas border, would ensure independence of supply for Crown and provides Constellation with complete control of the production of the Modelo brands for marketing and distribution in the U.S.

https://www.cbrands.com/blogs/news/anheuser-busch-inbev-and-constellation-brands-announce-revised-agreement-for-complete-divestiture-of-u-s-business-of-grupo-modelo

Workers in the UK in high jobs can earn much more in places like the USA, Canada, Australia and even Asian financial hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. This is causing a weird situation where the UK has a lot of people migrating to the country from undeveloped economies to find a better life with better opportunities and equally a lot of people moving out of the country to find an even better life with even better opportunities.

The net result of this in and out game is clear, however. The UK brings in more people than it loses for now, but it's losing a lot of highly skilled workers and its been losing more and more every year since 2007. If the trend continues the UK will wind up with a declining population that's missing all its most productive workers.

— The Economy of the UK Is in Serious Trouble @ ~10:30

Focusing on the SEC, I guess you can say it's been a down year for the conference. Alabama is the only representative in the College Football Playoffs...

Whether it was because of Washington's stout defensive secondary that showed up at a great time, or the fact that Nix was just trying to force the ball more than normal, the end result was arguably the worst game of the season for No. 10 at the worst possible time.

While full details of the finalized deals are still emerging, they set 25% compounded raises over the 4½-year agreements, including an 11% increase upon ratification; reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments; increased 401(k) company contributions; and enhanced profit-sharing bonuses.
       :
Deutsche Bank recently estimated the overall cost increase of the agreement at Ford to be $6.2 billion over the term of the agreement, $7.2 billion at GM, and $6.4 billion at Stellantis.

Ford said the UAW deal, if ratified by members, is going to add $850 to $900 in costs per vehicle assembled.

— Winners and losers of the UAW talks with GM, Ford and Stellantis

• Ford of $6.2B works out to ~$1.4B/year
• GM of ~$1.6B/year
• Chrysler/Fiat of ~$1.4B/year

• Ford: sold 2.3M cars and trucks in 2022 in the USA
• GM: sold 2.27M cars and trucks in 2022 in the USA

• The $/car increase does not line up with the cars sold combined with cost over the contract for any of the auto makers.
  
  
• The VAST majority of the cost to manufacture a new car does not go to the UAW workers. I think my rough numbers for Ford are that the 'cost of good sold' included around 4.5% UAW salary+benefits before the strike. Maybe it is now 6%. The numbers above support my belief that UAW salary+benefits aren't even close to the biggest cost.
  
  
• An extra $1.5B - $2B per year in costs isn't nothing, but is not huge given the auto maker's recent profits. It is also not obviously unreasonable given that inflation has almost certainly moved UAW salary *down* in real terms over the past few years.
  
  
• I'd love to know why the other ~95% of costs to make a car are considered so tough to move down. If I was trying to save $1B I don't know that I'd look at the salaries of folks making up only %4.5% - 6% of the costs.
  
  Of course, maybe looking at these costs is what the big-3 have historically done and the result was small cuts in quality that added up?
  
  Or, most likely, they are always looking at all cost inputs.
  
  Or the auto CEOs are posturing.

• Inflation,
• Current percent of the cost of a car as UAW pay+benefits, and
• Big-3 profits.

The breadth of the [Michigan Football Sign Stealing] scheme appears to be massive. Stalions purchased tickets to games at 12 of 13 Big Ten schools for a total of 30 games, according to Monday report from ESPN.

— Sources: TCU knew of Michigan's sign-stealing scheme prior to CFP game, used 'dummy signals' to dupe Wolverines

• 1997: 92-70; Won the World Series!
• 2003: 91-71; Won the World Series again!
• 2004: 83-79
• 2005: 83-79
• 2008: 84-78
• 2009: 87-75
• 2020: 31-29; made (16 team) playoffs ...
• 2023: 84-78; made playoffs!

• 97.1: Tony Romo (career)
• 97.3: Dak Prescott (career to date)

• 93.0: Tony Romo
• 92.3: Dak Prescott

• 1970: ~29,000/year granted in the USA
• 2011: ~184,000/year granted in the USA

Ever since researchers sequenced the chimp genome in 2005, they have known that humans share about 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, making them our closest living relatives.

— Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives

'Parent / Child' 50% [DNA Shared] (but 47.5% for father-son relationships)

• There are 48,500 UAW workers at GM (round up to 50,000)
• 2,000 work hours/year
• 100,000,000 work hour/year/worker

• 2022: $9.7B
• 2021: $9.9B
• 2020: $6.3B
• 2019: $6.7B
• 2018: $8.1B

• 2020: 2.2 WAR (52 games; Covid shortened season)
• 2021: 0.0 WAR (58 games)
• 2022: 0.9 WAR (47 games)
• 2023: 0.1 WAR (43 games so far)

Wagner pointed out that Bud Light sales at his store since mid-April plunged 45% from a year ago. The decline can be attributed to the EVOLVING PREFERENCES OF CONSUMERS.

— https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/just-stopped-buying-bud-light-162116088.html

To discover an American's true opinion of his own country, ask him what he thinks of France.

• Samsung's fab business is included in Samsung Microelectronics.
• For those who remember when Intel dominated the chip space, Intel's market cap position is surprising.
• For those who remember the 1980s when Japan was a major semiconductor player the lack of Japanese companies is surprising.
• If not for ASML (and maybe privately held ARM), Europe wouldn't matter at all.

• Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS)
• Credit Suisse
• Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC)

• Swiss Volksbank
• Bank Leu

• 1990: CS buys Bank Leu
• 1993: CS buys Swiss Volksbank
• 1998: UBS merges with Swiss Bank Corp (merged bank named the United Bank of Switzerland)
• 2023: UBS takes over Credit Suisse

Using ChatGPT, I got a bunch of potentially useful data on the percentage of various national populations over 80 from 1920 to the present. But I can't be sure the AI isn't making stuff up and by the time I find the numbers on the cited sources I haven't saved any time. ChatGPT has an enormous advantage at rummaging through databases but that isn't any good if I can't trust it. And it looks like it was wrong.

• Deshaun Watson was held out of all games in the 2021 season by the Houston Texans, traded to Cleveland in the offseason and then suspended for the first 11 games of the 2022 season by the league. His QB Rate for the six games he played in 2022 was 79.1 and his QBR was 38.3.
  
  
• Russell Watson had the worst season of his career after Denver gave him a new contract and finished the 2022 season ranked 27th and 28th at QB Rate and QBR respectively.
  
  
• Kyler Murray's statistics for the past two years have been similar to Lamar's, having a better 2021 season than Lamar and a worse 2022 season. Kyler Murray's contract extension came with a clause requiring 'four hours of independent study' per game week because the Arizona Cardinals did not believe he was studying game film on his own prior to the games.
  

• 2022: $23.0 million
• 2023: $32.4 million (franchise tag)
• 2024: $38.9 million (estimated hypothetical 2nd franchise tag)

Bobby Wagner joined the Los Angeles Rams after spending a decade playing for the Seattle Seahawks. His Rams tenure ended up being quite a bit shorter.

Wagner and the Rams mutually agreed to part ways on Thursday, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, one season into the five-year, $50 million contract he signed to join the team.

• 5 years for $50 million total
• $20 million guaranteed ($10 million guaranteed at signing)

...
The Ringer studied every multiyear free-agent contract in Spotrac's database signed from 2011, the start of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, to 2015—a total of 663 deals. This data focuses solely on contracts signed during free agency, so it doesn't account for rookie contracts, contract extensions, or players who re-signed with their team before becoming unrestricted free agents. It also excludes one-year free-agent deals.

The results were staggering: A player who signs a five-year deal has better odds of lasting one year (14.7 percent) than he does of lasting five years (13.7 percent). Players who sign four-year contracts in free agency have the exact same odds of lasting one year on the deal (23.1 percent) as lasting four years. Players on three-year contracts have roughly the same odds of the deal ending in one full season or less (34.3 percent) as they do of lasting the full term (36.2 percent). Less than half of players who sign two-year deals last two years (45.8 percent), and one-sixth don't even make it through the first year. If time is money, in the NFL both are relative.

What running does to the knees, according to a large survey of marathon runners
Many doctors see osteoarthritis as a “wear-and-tear” condition, but a large survey among long-distance runners found no increased knee or hip risks.

Runners often hear the warning “Keep pounding the pavement and you'll destroy your knees.” A new study found that runners were not more likely to develop hip or knee osteoarthritis the longer, faster and more frequently they ran.
...
The new research surveyed 3,804 recreational runners who participated in the Chicago Marathon in 2019 or 2021 with questions from how many years they’d been running and their average running paces to whether they had family histories of arthritis.
...
On average, runners who responded to the survey were just shy of 44 years old and ran 27.9 miles per week at 8 minutes and 52 seconds per mile. They’d typically been running for close to 15 years, although that number ranged from 1 to 67 years. Many respondents were running their first marathon while a select few had run dozens. Most fell somewhere in between.

Thanks to the broad nature of the group surveyed — a departure from historical research focused on elite-level Olympians — the Northwestern researchers could analyze how runners' arthritis risk changed according to their running pace, intensity and cumulative running history.

Surprisingly, they found no association between an increased risk for knee or hip arthritis and the number of years someone had been running, the number of marathons completed, their weekly running mileage, nor their running pace.

— What running does to the knee

Consequently, in the first centuries of its existence, Russia expanded at a rate of one Belgium per year.

• US Land area 1783: ~800,000 square miles
• US Land area 2022: ~3.8M square miles

The Belgium-sized Kherson province was seized within days after the February 24 invasion began, becoming Russia's largest and most strategic gain.

— Russia's Kherson retreat marks tectonic shift in Ukraine war

Roughly two weeks before SVB stock collapsed and its Silicon Valley Bank unit was closed by regulators, its top executive sold millions of dollars of shares.

SVB President and CEO Greg Becker sold 12,451 shares on Feb. 27 for $3.6 million, an average price of $287.42 each. That day he also acquired the same number of shares using stock options priced at $105.18 each, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The options exercise paired with the stock sale meant that Becker's stock ownership in SVB remained unchanged.

Both transactions were made through a trust that he controls, using a trading plan that he had set up on Jan. 26, according to the filing. The options had been set to expire May 2.

On Feb. 27, the trust sold $3.6 million worth of shares while acquiring options worth $1.3 million. The trades were scheduled on Jan. 26 through an SEC rule that allows insiders to schedule sales ahead of time to allay suspicions of trading on insider information.

...

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has highlighted 10b5-1 plans as having been potentially abused by executives and the agency has proposed new rules for the program.

The sales executed by Mr. Becker's trust would not have been possible under the proposed rules, which stipulate among other things that 10b5-1 sellers must wait 90 days between filing the trades and executing them.

• 60 or more
• 31 - 60
• 30 or fewer

• https://www.portland.gov/police/chiefs-office/documents/2005-police-annual-report/download
• https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/01/35-homicides-in-portland-in-2019-involved-victims-ranging-in-age-from-18-to-65.html
• https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/01/55-homicides-in-portland-in-2020-the-most-in-26-years-involved-victims-from-8-months-old-to-71.html
• https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/01/portlands-101-homicides-in-2022-set-new-record-at-some-point-we-have-to-be-tired-of-burying-our-children.html
• https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ois-summaries

Explore the State-Space of Olfaction with the Qualia Research Institute
...
The Magical Creatures line of scents from QRI is a collection designed to highlight the complex and irregular nature of the state-space of olfaction. We believe that the space of olfaction is not well-described by a simple Euclidean space, but is instead a complex ecosystem with hidden interstitial gems and exotic creatures. The scents in the line are designed to showcase "special effects" found in this space.

The Cutting-Edge (Preorder)
Includes one additional Mystical Type Magical Creature. This scent has special effects that have the capacity to expand the mind and activate new modes of experience that foreshadow the radical phase transitions of consciousness native to the Post-Darwinian evolutionary era.

Comes with a set of 50ml bottles of Open Fearless, Dust Devil, Glacial Gumdrop, Frisson, Eau de Cologne Vide, and Hedonium Shockwave + scent exploration accessories.

Also Includes:

• Feature on Our Donors (optional)
• Invitation to observe a QRI research retreat
• Personalized scent exploration

$20,000

There's dozens of different types [of semiconductors], but you can kind of put them in three big buckets.

Your top tier, the best ones, these are 10 nm and smaller. This is typically what's in your cell phone or even high end computers and servers. Those, about 80% of them, are actually fabricated in Taiwan with another 20% in South Korea.

But, again, you need the whole ecosystem to make it work. Remove one country, the whole thing falls apart.

In the middle, you've got everything that goes from climate control systems to automotive to aerospace to machinery. Those are made in a host of places: the United States, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, the Netherlands ... a little bit in Germany as well. This still requires the ecosystem but you could probably lose one player. Probably not more than one player.

And then you've got your low end. 90 nm and up. These are chips that are basically analog processors. They can do one little yes/no equation, not much more than that. This is the Internet of Things.

• Intel has been shipping 10nm chips in volume since 2020 (here is an example laptop chip) and has been shipping more 10 nm parts than 14 nm parts since the middle of 2021. The middle of 2021 is 18 months ago and Peter doesn't mention Intel as a top tier player, mentioning only TSMC and Samsung.
  
  
• AMD has been shipping TSMC manufactured 7 nm chips since the Zen 2 x86 micro-architecture. Both server and consumer (Ryzen brand) Zen 2 parts were available in late 2019. Even non-high-end "computers and servers" have been on what Zeihan describes as a high end process since early 2020, so two full years.
  
  
• 10 nm sounds like a size, but semiconductor device "size" values have not corresponded to actual measurable size for quite a while. At the 90 nm node (around 2004) a 90 nm transistor had a half-pitch of 90 nm. Earlier nodes (e.g. 130 nm, 180 nm, ...) were also named after the measurable half-pitch of the transistors being built. But by 2009, the 32 nm node had a half-pitch of 52 nm. Today the gap between the size used in the node name and the physical size of the transistors is even more extreme.
  
  This discrepency gives vendors the ability to name their nodes with more leeway. Intel 10 nm (once Intel worked out the bugs) is roughly equivalent to TSMC 7 nm. Again, I see no evidence that Zeihan knows this.
  
  
• 90 nm does not mean 'basically analog.' Zeihan seems to be using the word 'analog' as a synonym for 'not very advanced.' That isn't what analog means.
  
  
• Analog is not yes/no ... yes/no would be digital. I wonder whether Zeihan knows the difference. I suspect not.

Two packets of Quaker's Instant Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal is nutritionally roughly comparable to two packets of Quaker's Instant Regular Oatmeal plus a 9 oz. Coke:

NIALA: During the pandemic enrollment in public schools went down by more than a million students. That's according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
...
So I think the obvious first question is if students are leaving public schools, where are they going?

ERICA: So they're going to private schools, they're going to charter schools, and the homeschooling population of students in the U.S. has actually doubled during the pandemic from around 2.5 million to around 5 million.

— Why America's public school enrollment is down

• Public schools lost over 1 million students during the recent pandemic.
• 2.5 million of those 1M+ lost students became home schooled.
• The rest went to private and charter schools.

But not all customers are loving it.
...
"I'm not giving my money to robots," another commenter wrote. "Raise the minimum wage!"

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on Earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

"SpaceX has moved very quickly on development," Kirasich said about Raptor. "We've seen them manufacture what was called Raptor 1.0. They have since upgraded to Raptor 2.0 that first of all increases performance and thrust and secondly reduces the amount of parts, reducing the amount of time to manufacture and test. They build these things very fast. Their goal was seven engines a week, and they hit that about a quarter ago. So they are now building seven engines a week."

— 2022: SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says

Once the BE-4 production line is stabilized, Huntsville staff will be trained in Kent and then return to ramp up engine production in Huntsville. Ultimately the factory will be able to produce 42 engines a year, split roughly evenly between the BE-4 and the BE-3U engine that will power the upper stage of New Glenn. The company expects to take two to three years to reach that production rate.

— 2020: Blue Origin opens rocket engine factory

Under coach Nick Saban, the Alabama Crimson Tide does not lose often, but when they do, they probably have a pretty good idea of who they will play in their next game.

Coming off tough road losses last weekend, No. 6 Alabama and No. 24 Mississippi State will meet in a Southeastern Conference contest Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, Ala

https://sports.yahoo.com/no-6-alabama-no-24-182332538.html

• Loses any regular season game except for the last one, or
• Loses a bowl game (because season schedules are set more than six months in advance)

• Loses the last game of the regular season but will go to a bowl game or at conference championship

Everything would be fine if it wasn't so bad.

— Ramzan Kadyrov (Chechen Warlord, age 46)

1. Low Intensity Steady State
2. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Target heart rate during moderate intensity activities is about 50-70% of maximum heart rate, while during vigorous physical activity it's about 70-85% of maximum....

If you're just starting out, aim for the lower range of your target zone (50 percent) and gradually build up. In time, you'll be able to exercise comfortably at up to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Woo hoo!

As an alternative to moderate-intensity training, the concept of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is increasing in popularity, Dr. Tyree said. This involves exercise at high exertional levels, from 80 to 95% of maximal heart rate for short periods, followed by a recovery period that is usually 40 to 50% of maximal heart rate.

A good guideline is to strive for 70 to 90 percent of your maximal heart rate during the high-intensity sessions, and 55 to 65 percent during recovery, according to Len Kravitz, PhD, coordinator of exercise science at the University of Mexico and author of HIIT Your Limit.

The target heart rate zone of a HIIT workout is 80 to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate.

During your high-intensity work, you want to be working at 80 to 95 percent of your maximal heart rate...

Appalachian State delivered the first shocking result of the 2022 college football season.

• CDE numbers:
  https://edsource.org/2022/california-k-12-enrollment-plunges-again-falls-below-6-million/670111
  https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ps/cefprivinstr.asp
  https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/EnrAgeGrd.aspx?cds=00&agglevel=state&year=20XX-YY
  
  
• NCES numbers sources:
  https://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/Vol_3/3_2/q2-6.asp
  https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp
  https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018019.pdf
  https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017094.pdf
  https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2021/2021009.pdf
  

• Richard's Rainwater
  12 pack of 16 oz cans for $19.99
• Heart Water
  1 six pack of 16 oz cans for $35.
• Columbia Empire Farms Oregon Rain Water
  $2.99 for a 16.9 oz bottle.

A year ago, Kellogg cereal teamed up with the Gay Mafia — GLAAD — to introduce a new product aimed at grooming kids at breakfast. As Tony the Tiger now says, "They're gaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

They called it Together.

A year later, Kellogg is falling apart after 128 years in business.

Kellogg will spin off its North American cereal division, which was its only product when the company began in 1894.

Cereal sales have stagnated for Kellogg, hence the Hail Mary gay promotion. (I always had my suspicions about Froot Loops.) Less than 20% of its revenues come from North American cereal.

(underlining added by me)

• Become sad with financials
• Run an overtly political ad campaign
• Accept reality

• Things are going fine
• Run an overtly political ad campaign
• Ooops

• Get Woke, Go Broke: NFL Edition
• Nike: 1 Year After Colin Kaepernick
• P&G's $8B Gillette Write Down

The year is 2063.

The global currency is Moosecoin.

You're refused entry into the Metaverse's Lambo club because your Twitter profile picture is not enclosed in an icosahedron.

In a desperate bid to hold onto a square of pixels, or "land", you bought in "Elontopia", you must pay rent to Paris Hilton, who bought $17 billion worth of "real estate" with a picture of a monkey in 2033, and in a bid to become immortal, has since replaced all of her organs with bionic hardware, each limb operated by its own separate smart contract.

Citizens who hold 'Sliving' tokens now have voting rights on her every move - from cooking mediocre lasagnes to overthrowing what is left of democracy.

Jobs are obsolete and by the time you get to the MetaWalmart, Moosecoin has crashed

— Web3.0: A Libertarian Dystopia

• Command a Navy cruiser or larger ship
• Command a ballistic missile submarine, or a squadron of attack submarines
• Command a Naval Air Wing based on an Aircraft Carrier or amphibious assault vessel
• Command a shore-based installation such as a base or Naval school, be in a senior staff leadership positions in some context

• 21 cruisers (all Ticonderogas, I think)
  11 aircraft carriers
• 7 Wasp class amphibious assault ships
  2 America class amphibious assault ships
• 18 Ohio class ballistic missile submarines
• 14 attack submarine squadrons
• 9 carrier based air wings [Yes, more carriers than air wings!]

In the United States, the World Bank downgraded growth prospects for 2022 to 2.6% from the 3.8% it expected in its January forecast.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

Russia wants to win over its foreign customers not just when it comes to next-generation fighter jets, like the infamous Checkmate, but also when it comes to commercial airliners. The future Sukhoi Superjet (SSJ)-New will boast more than 90% Russian-made parts, including the PD-8 engine, and will also come with an advanced system of logistical support, hoping to achieve record-breaking sales on foreign markets.

• Revenue: $62B
• Income: $8B
• Cash: $17B
• Liabilities: $31B (short: $20B, long: $11B)
• Market Cap: $700B
• Vehicles sold: ~0.9M (worldwide)

• Revenue: $134B
• Income: $11B
• Cash: $50B
• Liabilities: $208B (short: $91B, long $117B)
• Market Cap: $50B
• Vehicles sold: ~3.9M (worldwide)

• Rent Estimate: $4,800 (per month, I presume)
• Refi Estimate: $12,466/month

This is according to analysts at Mercury Research, which said on Wednesday that AMD's x86 market share reached 27.7 percent against Intel in the first quarter of 2022.
...
In servers, AMD's share grew 2.7 points year-over-year to 11.6 percent
...
For laptops, AMD's share leaped 4.4 points year-over-year to 22.5 percent.
...
AMD's desktop share was 18.3 percent..."

    — https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/13/amd_intel_x86/

• Nike: 1 Year After Colin Kaepernick
• P&G's $8B Gillette Write Down

In the United States, many vodkas are made from 95% pure grain alcohol produced in large quantities by agricultural-industrial giants Archer Daniels Midland, Grain Processing Corporation, and Midwest Grain Products (MGP). Bottlers purchase the base spirits in bulk, then filter, dilute, distribute and market the end product under a variety of vodka brand names.

• 12,000 square miles of arable land in Egypt, about ⅓ more than the total land area of Vermont (9,000 square miles).
  
  
• 100 million Egyptians to feed.
  
  
• Which works out to about 8,300 Egyptians to feed per square mile of arable land.
  
  
• Which works out to about 13 Egyptians to feed per acre of arable land.
  
  
• Iowa has about 26 million acres of farmland. Feeding 13 people per acre would be equivalent to Iowa providing enough food to feed the entire United States.
  

In the town of Baarle-Nassau there is a line on the floor. If you're on one side of this line you're in the Netherlands with its fancy windmills. If you're on the other you're in Belgium with its convenient access to German armies ...

The researchers found before 90 BCE the denarius was composed of pure silver, but that dropped 10 percent only five years later.

"The denarius first dropped to under 95 percent fine, and then it fell again to 90 percent, with some coins as low as 86 percent, suggesting a severe currency crisis," concludes University of Liverpool archeologist Matthew Ponting.

— An Ancient Financial Crisis Has Been Discovered... in Roman Coins

The Federal Reserve adopted average inflation targeting as part of its long-run monetary strategy framework in 2020. This strategy allows inflation to rise and fall such that it averages 2% over time.

— Average Inflation Targeting in the Financial Crisis Recovery

• 2018-19: 56 out of 82 games (68%)
• 2019-20: 62 out of 71 games (87%)
• 2020-21: 36 out of 72 games (50%)
• 2021-22: 38 out of 78 games (49%) -- 4 games left

There are four kinds of countries in the world:

• developed countries,
• undeveloped countries,
• Japan and
• Argentina

    —Simon Kuznets (maybe, but who cares!)

Nuclear explosions can cause significant damage and casualties from blast, heat, and radiation but you can keep your family safe by knowing what to do and being prepared if it occurs.

A nuclear weapon is a device that uses a nuclear reaction to create an explosion.

Nuclear devices range from a small portable device carried by an individual to a weapon carried by a missile.

A nuclear explosion may occur with or without a few minutes warning.

Fallout is most dangerous in the first few hours after the detonation when it is giving off the highest levels of radiation. It takes time for fallout to arrive back to ground level, often more than 15 minutes for areas outside of the immediate blast damage zones. This is enough time for you to be able to prevent significant radiation exposure by following these simple steps:

GET INSIDE

Get inside the nearest building to avoid radiation. Brick or concrete are best.

Remove contaminated clothing and wipe off or wash unprotected skin if you were outside after the fallout arrived. Hand sanitizer does not protect against fall out. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth, if possible. Do not use disinfectant wipes on your skin.

Go to the basement or middle of the building. Stay away from the outer walls and roof. Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them.

    —https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-explosion

The 49ers are just sucking them in. Now <opponent> is overconfident.

• Had run nine plays in three series (three 3-and-out series)
• For a total of -7 yards
• With two sacks
• ... three incomplete passes
• ... and four rushes for seven yards total

"... [I] will attempt to reproduce this on my end. The fix was to enable AMP with multisession. The setting of mixed_precision policy was the one causing the trouble. By Moving it within unet_inference() fn which gets threaded through workerpool implementation , the issue was gone for multisession. We are yet to validate the correctness of this approach."

• Alabama
• Auburn
• Florida
• Georgia
• LSU
• Tennessee

• Michigan
• Nebraska x3
• Florida
• Florida State
• Alabama
• Washington
• Miami (FL) x2
• Notre Dame
• Colorado
• Georgia Tech

• Three animated movies (Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Frozen, Avatar)
• One live-action movie (Harry Potter)

Athletic director Trev Alberts said he has seen enough progress in the once-proud program to merit bringing back Frost, who goes into next year with four straight losing seasons at his alma mater. The Cornhuskers are 15-27 and have never finished higher than fifth in the Big Ten West under Frost. The Huskers are 3-7 overall and 1-6 in Big Ten games this season but haven't lost by more than nine points with one of the toughest schedules in the country.

"Not all of us chase the latest and greatest though. I kept my last tv for 6 years."

There have been many poorly designed weapons, but none of them reached production levels of the Nambu Type 94, produced in 1935-1945. It was a truly terrible pistol and yet it was widely used by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. But why? And what exactly qualifies the Nambu Type 94 as one of the worst handguns in the history of the world?

[Downed Japanese] Airman First Class Shigenori Nishikaichi was able to take hostages and briefly gain control of the island. But the expected Japanese submarine rescue never materialized, and after Nishikaichi threatened to shoot the hostages, one of the Hawaiians, Benehakaka Kanahele, lunged at him. The pilot shot Kanahele 3 times with his sidearm, angering him ...

• 11 aircraft carriers
• 68 submarines
• 31 amphibious warfare ships
• :

"The company [Uber] reported its first adjusted EBITDA profit of $8 million for the quarter.
:
The company's net loss of $2.4 billion was..."

1. 2.3m high × 5.5m wide × 43m long: 343m³

Generally, I don't think it's terrible for the kids. It's just a model of parenting that a) is insane and b) cannot conceivably be emulated by most of the population.

Friend's Wife: There is that ranch up in Gualala, near the sea. What is it's name?
Me: ...
Me: Sea Ranch?

Petersen, who now works full-time writing a paid subscription newsletter for the online platform Substack, spoke to me over Zoom from a small island off the coast of Washington State, west of her home in Missoula, Montana.

My son is looking for a studio apartment around USC, and one that he applied for a couple days ago told us that the owner wanted 6 months rent up front (after he and I both paid app fees). No wonder people fucking hate landlords and the management companies that facilitate them

Jurassic Sands was founded in 1991 with a simple goal. Even 27 years later we still continue to provide only all-natural play sands that are the safest, cleanest, and purest sands on the market. Our sands have won 3 National Awards: the Early Childhood 'Director's Choice Award, the Hobby industry's Best New Product Award and our sandbox was voted 'Most Fun Hands-Activity' by 40,000 attendees at The Kids Fair.

Our specialty's include play sand for sensory bins, sand and water tables, sand boxes, therapy sand trays, making Native American rock art and sand paintings, and substrates for aquariums and reptiles like bearded dragons and geckos.

Our sands were present when dinosaurs walked the Earth, helped Native Americans tell stories, and can now be experienced by all. We never rush mother nature, all our sands are formed from natural errosion and are never crushed or pulverized. Jurassic Sands was created and continues to operate because we truly believe in the developmental, sensory, and social sand play benefits for children.

The GAO report noted the 'technical challenges' [in the Blue Origin supplied BE-4 rocket engine] were related to 'the igniter and booster capabilities required'...

Chemical rocket launches are still plausible for Super-Earths <=10M_⊕, but become unrealistic for more massive planets. On worlds with a surface gravity of > 10 Earth gravities, a sizable fraction of the planet would need to be used up as chemical fuel per launch, limiting the total number of flights.

— Spaceflight from Super Earths is Difficult

• wonder.cdc.gov
• https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/01/27/40000-excess-deaths-in-2020-and-other-things-we-learned-from-california-death-data/

:

Bob: Yeah, that was back in around 1962 or 3 somewhere around there and I made some, what were for me, fundamental realizations. So remind me of that story because I want to tell you another one and I'll forget if you don't.

I was in my uncle's, same uncle, and I was in his backyard and he was playing with these two new walkie talkies he had just bought. I'd never heard of a walkie talkie. Back in 1962 transistors were only three years old, so these were brand new things and so we were playing with them, and I would grab one and my sister would grab one, and we'd be talking to each other and then I realized, as soon as she was far enough away to where I couldn't hear her without the walkie talkie, I couldn't hear her with it either. The range was such that they were the same range.

So I thought, well that's not fair, this things not doing anything, it's a sham. This walkie talkie doesn't work, and yet somebody sold it, right, so I'm thinking well how can that be, how can you go into business selling things that don't actually do what they're supposed to do, and as a little kid I was just shocked by that, like is this possible. So the next thing I think, like for first communion, (Catholic church, first communion), people come over and they give you presents. And 1962, I think, is when I had my first communion and I got a walkie talkie, I got a radio, and I forget how many transistors it was, but all my friends at school, well they were doing the same thing. They got radios and we compared notes, and one of us had an 8 transistor and one had a 10, one had 12, one had a 6 and I thought, well that's weird, they don't sound any different, they sound the same, it’s not like one's higher quality that I could tell, so I started wondering "well, what's the difference? What are those transistors doing if they don't result in any palpable improvement?"

So I took the backs off and I wanted to see if I could spot the difference. I counted the transistors (I knew that they were the little silver cans), they were easy to spot, and so I verified that they had as many as they said that they would have, but I also noticed the printed circuit wiring that was on the side of the board that was facing me when I took the back off, because I could see it and I looked at it and I realized those transistors didn't go anywhere. Only six of them were connected to the circuit.

Interviewer: They were just stuck into the board with, by soldering.

Bob: Yeah they were just stuck in. And I was puzzling over this for the longest time thinking, my understanding limited though that I knew it was, was that those wires on the board were carrying electrical currents of some sort and that's how these transistors work, so if there's no wires, how could they do anything, and I finally asked my uncle, "I give up I don't know what's happening here, why would they put transistors in there, how are they participating in the radio's function without those wires?" He says "they're not" and I said "well what are they doing in the circuit?" He said "they're not in the circuit, they're just in the product", "What?". He said, "in fact, I bet you that if we test them we'll discover that they don't even work, they're probably the broken ones that were on the floor and they just stuck them in there, so that they could call it a, you know, more of a transistor radio so that people would pay more for it".

I said "that can't be legal." He goes "sure it is", and I suddenly realize my gosh the world is a stranger place than I ever thought.

Andrew Karas is one the respondents who agreed. Last month he began the second year of his MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, via Zoom from the Philadelphia apartment he leased for the two-year duration. Wharton ranked sixth in the 2019-20 U.S. rankings.

In a follow-up interview by Zoom, clad in a Wharton T-shirt and with a city of Chicago flag on his wall, Karas said he feels the value of the program is diminished by being online, he doesn't understand why Wharton doesn't behave like any other business whose services changed, and the school should offer a partial refund.

"It's disturbing to me that they feel entitled to ask us to pay the whole full freight of tuition. It shows a lack of recognition of the massive resources that they have that alumni have contributed," said Karas, who wants to pursue a career in real estate development, creating places for people to live in urban centers.

— Students at the Costliest MBA Programs Have Buyer's Remorse

"I am unhappy at an MBA program would charge what the market will bear," says an MBA student who missed the point in his classes on 'setting prices.' "I mean, I'll write Wharton the check, of course, but I don't understand why they won't charge me less than I'm willing to pay!"

An Associate Professor at Wharton, who preferred to speak off the record, commented, "We get a few of these every year. We explain that the habit of thinking in terms of 'price fairness' and leaving money on the table for strangers is pretty much what we are trying to get them to stop doing. Most of the students learn it eventually. Some do not. The one's who don't can use their $200,000 Wharton education to land a job paying $40,000 per year at some non-profit for blind ducks. Lord knows, the ones who don't get it won't be leading the alumni contribution fund raisers."

Ed Finney, Wharton class of 93 and partner at McKinsey, was asked about this. Should Wharton reduce their tuition?

"I'm not seeing that," he said. "You might drop the price a bit for the first years if you were worried about filling the class. It would probably be cheaper to just run an advertising campaign if you were worried, but you could war-game it. The second year students are pretty stuck, though. It isn't like attending Wharton for one year and not graduating is particularly valuable. I'd consider adding a 50% surcharge for those students because of the extra effort in delivering the classes remotely."

...

A hammer's ability to drive nails determines the hammerness, not it's price.

My father had been sick for almost a year. Already he'd had one lung removed. But after a time home — which he spent mostly in bed, listening to programs of eclectic classical music (Penderecki, Kodaly's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello) on WBAI-FM ... — he began to grow weaker.

For most of my life, if it came up, I would tell you: "My father died of lung cancer in 1958 when I was seventeen."

... if I was born in 1942, in 1958 I could not possibly have been seventeen... WBAI-FM did not begin to broadcast til 1960. There were no Penderecki recordings available in 1958. Various researches followed

Finally, in an old Harlem newspaper, a small article was unearthed that confirmed it: my father died in the early days of October 1960.

I was eighteen.

If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.

President Trump — increasingly a booster of hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for coronavirus — has a "small personal financial interest" in Sanofi, a French drugmaker that produces a brand-name version of the drug - though it's a tiny investment for the billionaire.

• Sanofi produces Plaquenil, the brand-name form of hydroxychloroquine, the New York Times reported; the drug is typically used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and malaria.
• Trump's three family trusts have investments in a Dodge & Cox mutual fund, with Sanofi as the largest holding, according to the Times.
• Forbes estimates the value of Trump's Sanofi holdings to be less than $3,000; for context, Forbes estimates Trump's total net worth at $2.1 billion

First Bank Collapses Amid Coronavirus Woes: More in Store?

The FDIC noted "The First State Bank has experienced longstanding capital and asset quality issues, operating with financial difficulties since 2015." Moreover, the bank's capital levels as of Dec 31, 2019 were too low for legally staying operational.

Therefore, all four branches of The First State Bank, along with its deposits and certain assets were immediately acquired by MVB Bank Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of MVB Financial Corp. MVBF. As of Dec 31, 2019, it had nearly $139.5 million of total deposits and $152.4 million in total assets.

While the bank's failure was not a result of coronavirus woes...

Quarterbacks don't usually get [franchise tagged], although it happened with Drew Brees and Peyton Manning at different points in their Hall of Fame careers.

• trivially true and meaningless, or
• wrong

• Trivially true, but meaningless: It is "unusual" to tag any specific position other than punter, or
• Wrong: quarterbacks actually get tagged about as often as one should expect